


necesito tus besitos

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [11]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, Cute, Established Relationship, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Multi, Neurodiversity, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Sleepy Cuddles, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 16:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21182783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Vanessa, Usnavi and Ruben might be lacking in a lot of things – emotional stability, regular sleep schedules, non-tragic backstories - but what theydohave is great hair, each other, and a whole truckload of cute dumbass energy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one: Ruben gets caught in the rain on the way to Vanessa's.  
Chapter two: Getting high, because everyone here needs to chill the fuck out once in a while.  
Chapter three: Spontaneous romantic gestures.  
Chapter four: Usnavi and his perfect pitch.  
Chapter five: Staying up too late is much nicer when you have a cute girlfriend and boyfriend to cuddle sleepily with the next day.

He has to check every now and then to make sure he’s conscious, but Ruben’s at least 90 percent sure by now that this whole thing isn’t just an incredibly long and plot-heavy sex dream he’s having. He’s dating. Two people. While awake. That’s very awesome, very hot, very nice, he likes it.

It does come with a host of other problems: namely, what if it stops? Even this early on he knows that for however long it lasts it’s high up on the depressingly short list of Ruben’s Positive Life Experiences. It’d be really great to keep it rolling as long as he possibly can before they come to their senses, so he puts the work in. He googles _how to be a good boyfriend _at least three times a day, just to check he’s doing alright. He also googles _how to be good at sex _more times than he’s proud of. There isn’t much he can do about how he looks, but he still tries to at least be presentable, always changes in the staff bathroom into clothes that don’t smell like his lab classroom, and puts on deodorant and combs his unruly hair out in front of the mirror before he gets the train to go see them after work. It seems to be working, insofar as neither Usnavi nor Vanessa have expressed the desire to break up with him or thrown up at the sight of his face yet. 

He should have known he couldn’t keep the illusion going for long. Today was long, today was loud, and today all the trains decided to be delayed which means he ends up on his way to Vanessa’s in a bad mood and much later than he said he would be. Good boyfriends are not late, because they respect their partner’s time.

As he gets to the subway steps to exit at Vanessa’s stop things get worse - the people coming down from outside all look decidedly worse for weather, hoods up or taking down their umbrellas, neither of which are a thing Ruben has, because it wasn’t forecast to rain today. He doesn’t even have a jacket, and it’s pouring down. By the time he gets buzzed into Vanessa’s building, the damp clinging of soaked fabric against skin with every movement is almost unbearable as his shoes squelch sadly up the stairs.

The second Vanessa opens the door for him, he darts into her apartment, forgetting to even say hi in his hurry to begin the miserable process of peeling off his wet clothes.

“Did you order me a stripper, Usnavi?” Vanessa asks, raising an eyebrow at Ruben as he struggles out of his sweater. “I’ll get you a towel, you’re gettin’ rain all over my floor.”

Ruben gingerly hangs the sweater over the back of a chair. “If this is what a stripper agency sent you, you should probably ask for a refund, unless you specifically requested an entire disaster.”

“Nah, we just asked them to send their cutest guy,” Usnavi says from the couch. “Looks like they really delivered.”

“Hey, I don’t need your pity. No matter how pathetic I might look right now.” Ruben takes his t-shirt off a little self-consciously, reaching into his bag to get his spare one on as fast as possible, but he pauses when his hand touches it. “…Oh.”

“It wasn’t pity. Oh what?”

“Oh, the rain got in my stuff.” He starts unloading onto the kitchen table to check the damage. Laptop’s safe in a water-resistant case, thank god. His notebook’s a little damp around the edges but not ruined. It’s his spare clothes that have taken the brunt of the water-logging: his sweatpants and pajama tshirt, his shirt and sweater from earlier, even his clean boxers for tomorrow. “Ah, shit! Goddammit. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Vanessa says, coming out of the bathroom with a towel.

Ruben indicates himself and everything on the table. “We had plans and now I have to go home, I can’t sit like this all night. I look like shit anyway, it’s probably better if I just leave you guys to it and come back when the universe doesn’t hate me so much, so I guess I’ll see you never?”

“You are so melodramatic,” Vanessa tuts. “You could just borrow some clothes.”

“I don’t think I could get my legs into any of your pants.”

“You can get into _my_ pants!” Usnavi says, bouncing off the couch and heading towards the dresser. “Not like that - well, or, yeah, that too maybe later, but my pants are roomy enough for any level of t-h-i-double-c thighs and I got some right here to save the day like I always knew they would so now who’s fashion is ‘stuck in 2008’, _Vanessa?”_

_“S_till yours. Always yours.” She takes the towel and starts ruffling it across Ruben’s hair for him. Usnavi takes out a pair of jeans that he waves in the air.

“Are you sure about this?” Ruben asks him. “I don’t want to be any trouble—”

“Ruben,” Usnavi says, pointing the jeans at him, “what kinda trouble do you think you wearing my spare pants for an evening would be? How would that inconvenience me in any way?”

Okay, well, Ruben can’t come up with anything that doesn’t sound stupid - _what if you decide you need to wear two pairs of pants all of a sudden _or _what if my legs somehow ruin your pants just by being in them_ seems ridiculous, at least until it happens - so he just avoids the question by unbuckling his belt instead.

Usnavi keeps rooting through the drawer, tossing a t-shirt in Ruben’s general direction then moving some other stuff around. “Vanessa, where’s my hoodie? Gotta give our dude some sleeves, here.”

“It’s still in the laundry, babe, I was about to go get it before the human puddle showed up.” Vanessa gestures to the bathroom. “Ruben, if you throw your wet stuff in the hamper I can put it in the dryer while I’m down there.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay, I don’t want to be _mmmmmf—!_“ Ruben is cut off by Vanessa gently but very insistently patting his face - or his mouth, mostly - with the wadded up towel she was just using on his hair.

“You ain’t,” she says, moving the towel away and tapping her index finger against his cheek, slightly affectionate, slightly warning. “You ain’t. Okay?” When he doesn’t answer she repeats “_okay?”_

“I…um…mmhmm,” he says, and nods, then escapes to go finish getting changed in the bathroom. It takes a while: he’s trying his best to salvage the situation and find some way to make what he’s wearing look good, but it seems only Usnavi can pull off the oversized _whatever I found in the drawer _look and still be gorgeous. Ruben just looks like a mess no matter what he tries, and he spends so long untucking his tshirt then re-tucking it then changing his mind again that his hair’s already dried enough so none of the curls will flatten out. In the end he just gives up and goes back out. Vanessa slips into the bathroom behind him to get the hamper and go down to the laundry room.

“Ayyy, lookin’ goood!” Usnavi says, shooting Ruben a double-finger guns. There’s three mugs of steaming coffee on the table in front of him: he pushes one in Ruben’s direction when he comes to sit beside him.

Usnavi is definitely better at boyfriending, Ruben reflects, a little sadly. Usnavi gave him dry clothes and made him coffee and is pretending that Ruben looks anything but dishevelled and rainswept, and Vanessa’s currently drying all his clothes for him so she’s better at this too. _You’re really blowing it, Marcado, _he thinks. _They’re not going to want you here when all you do is get water everywhere and complain_.

Usnavi, who didn’t get the memo that it’s Everyone Admonish Ruben time, leans against him and makes a happy noise under his breath. “This is so nice,” he says.

Okay, so there might still be time for Ruben to fix it, but if anything a hot drink and dry clothes and the quiet of the apartment just zones him out more, any kind of thought process just dissipating into the taste of his coffee and the way it feels to wear Usnavi’s t-shirt and the soft lighting of Vanessa’s apartment glowing against the grey backdrop of the downpour outside the windows, until Vanessa comes back up with her clean laundry. She sets it down on the table and takes Usnavi’s hoodie off the top of the pile to hold it out to Ruben, saying “your stuff’ll be done in like an hour.”

“Thank you,” he says, getting up to take the hoodie from her. It’s still warm from the dryer. “Sorry I’m a pain in the ass. I’ll get a more waterproof backpack for next time.”

“Or…” Vanessa hesitates, then shrugs. “Or, like you could just. Leave those clothes here.”She turns away and starts folding a t-shirt extremely forcefully. “Just so that you got a change for the next rainy day. Usnavi’s got stuff here, too, it’s just easier.”

“I…” Ruben’s first inclination is to say _no no that’s too much, don’t worry, it’s fine_, but something about the way she’s attacking the laundry pile makes him think twice: good boyfriend’s job is to make uncomfortable girlfriend feel more comfortable, right? She’s _asking_ him to leave something here, that’s a big deal for Vanessa. He has a toothbrush at Usnavi’s already, but nothing at Vanessa’s, and she wouldn’t offer to let anyone take up real estate in her place if she didn’t mean it. Vanessa doesn’t do _just to be polite_. “Are you sure there’s, um, space?”

“We can make room for one more,” Usnavi says. “Ain’t that right, Vanessa?”

Vanessa nods.

“Okay then,” Ruben says. “I will.” He takes a shirt off the pile too, brushing his hand against hers while he does, catches the smile on her face a second before she tilts her head so that her hair’s obscuring it. Usnavi comes over to start pairing up socks. The sound of the rain hammering against the window is a steady rhythm as the three of them fold clothes, and Ruben doesn’t mind the weather quite as much as he did earlier.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: very mild drug use, they're just smoking weed together.

Weekend hype isn’t a part of Usnavi’s life. Sure, he loves the _idea_ of dancing on a Saturday night, he’s glad he does it more often since he’s been with Vanessa, but he works seven days most weeks, he’s tired, he rarely has Sundays off. There’s only so much moving around a pair of legs can handle in a day.

Ruben seems to be terminally incapable of grasping the fact that Usnavi was the opposite of party long before he showed up. “You really don’t have to stay home just because I am,” he says when he and Vanessa drop by during Usnavi's lunch break. “You guys can go out, I’ll just hang out at my place, I’m used to spending weekends alone. Or, uh, phrase that in a way that doesn’t sound so passive-aggressive, but you get what I mean.”

“Buddy, I’m gonna be on my feet more than ten hours today, you think I’m staying home tonight just for you?” Usnavi says.

“Well, we should do something fun, then,” Ruben insists. “Like…uh. Um. What do people do for fun?”

“We could…” Vanessa starts, then frowns. “Uh. Usnavi?”

Usnavi’s starting to suspect this conversation will end up a trend in this relationship. It’s actually been real nice having someone around who doesn’t go out either, makes it less lonely on weekends when Vanessa wants to hit the town, and makes Vanessa feel less guilty about enjoying herself without him. But obviously Usnavi likes it best when all three of them are together doing something fun, and sometimes it’s hard to find ways to let loose that work around all of their combined issues. Having a drunk night together was super fun but Vanessa doesn’t like drinking at home too often. And Ruben doesn’t like going out ever.

Usnavi’s permanently exhausted though for the right night he can put that tiredness aside. He likes a bit of everything. But he likes one thing best and they haven’t done that together yet. And honestly, he could kinda use it, just the break he needs to come back at things fresh agan.

“Weed's good,” he says, hopefully. “We could weed.”

“Ooh,” Vanessa says. “We _could_ . Ruben?”

“I’m not against that,” Ruben says. “As long as you’re not asking me to pick up. I was never very good at it.”

“I can’t imagine you buying drugs,” Usnavi says. “I feel like you shouldn’t even know what they are, didn’t you grow up in a nice neighborhood?”

“I’m a _chemist._ And I went to college.”

“Hey, Ruben, pretend I’m a dealer and you’re buying off me,” Vanessa suggests.

Ruben straightens his tie, drops his voice an octave for some reason and says, “Hey, can I get some weed, please?”

“Oh, man, you’re right. What _is_ that?”

“It’s my weed voice. I don’t know why, it just happens.”

“Entendido,” Usnavi says. “That’s fine, you don’t know any dealers round here anyway.”

“I’m not sure we do either, y’know,” Vanessa says. “Remember how hard it was to pick up last time? Everyone’s more cautious these days. Maybe we’re all just gettin’ too old for it.”

“Ugh, don’t say that,” Ruben complains. “You’re not even twenty-five yet.”

“I’m mature beyond my years,” Vanessa says. “Pete will definitely be able to hook us up.”

“De ninguna manera I’m gonna ask Graffiti Pete to buy weed for us,” Usnavi says. “Never.”

***

The first thing he says when he answers the door to Graffiti Pete is “please don’t tell Sonny about this.”

“I ain’t no snitch,” Pete says. “Let me in, dude, this looks suspicious as fuck," which is how, despite swearing on all he owns that something like this would never happen, Usnavi ends up with Pete standing around awkwardly inside his apartment.

Ah, but he’s not fooling anyone any more. After the mural and finding out he had Sonny’s back during the blackout it’s been harder to genuinely dislike Pete like he used to and Usnavi mostly just does it out of habit now. Especially since Pete's moved on from shady business deals and ruining Usnavi’s property to being almost-legit with an apprenticeship in a tattoo studio. Sonny’s fully and irritatingly aware that Usnavi’s softened on him, slim chance of that information not being passed along, so no matter how hard Usnavi tries to threaten him it never seems to stick these days. Might as well try to be nice this time.

“Sooo,” Usnavi says. “Given anyone good ink recently?”

“Nah, mostly they still only let me practice on oranges. Got a couple of my own though. Rule one, ain’t nobody gonna go to an artist who don’t even trust his own work.” Pete rolls his sleeve up. “Check it, this one’s from last week.”

“Awesome,” Usnavi says. “Why a cat?”

“It’s a scorpion.”

“Oh.”

“It’s harder than spraypaint, okay?”

“No, no, I see it now. It’s very cool. Scorpion. Nice.”

“I’ll give you half off if you wanna be my first human subject.”

“Hard pass.” Usnavi thinks about it for a minute. “And if I find out Sonny’s come home with so much as a _dot _tattooed on him then I’m coming for you, you hear me?”

“I already asked. He said maybe after I practice a couple more years.”

Well, thank god there’s a limit to Sonny’s loyalty. And now Usnavi’s run out of smalltalk and sort of just wants Pete to leave, so, “…you got the stuff, yeah?”

“Oh, right, yeah.” Pete reaches into his pocket and tosses over a small baggie. Usnavi hands him a twenty. “This is a one-off though, bro, I don’t wanna get mixed up playing middle man full time. You want it again, I can give you numbers so you can call yourself, I got my future to think of.”

“Sure thing. I appreciate it,” Usnavi says, then “you wanna toke?” because it’s only polite to offer.

“Nah,” says Pete. “I ain’t touch that stuff, not even cigarettes. My body is a temple. You know you should really respect yourself more than this, man.”

“Alright, that’s enough, beat it,” Usnavi says.

***

Usnavi sits crosslegged on his bed. Vanessa’s sprawled next to him and Ruben’s looking for pants he can borrow because he says getting high in jeans is counterproductive like it’s any more normal to be high wearing sweatpants with a button-down and tie, but they’re both just background noise right now anyway because Usnavi’s gotta concentrate. He lays the materials out on the back of a book in front of him like an artist setting up his brushes. The ritual is important.

Nobody in the world would ever describe Usnavi as particularly dextrous, least of all Usnavi himself. So there’s a _real_ deep satisfaction when his hands actually do what he wants them to. It only comes out for specific occasions: pouring coffee, massages, certain other kinds of physical interaction _if_ you get what he’s saying, playing guitar, this. Usnavi’s fingers were made to make life feel good, not for business - who needs to write cursive, anyway? What he got is so much better.

He’s smoked in a ton of places with various people, with Benny in the park or up different fire escapes, at Vanessa’s place, but his favorite memories are always the nights at his place no matter who’s there. Vanessa calls him territorial about it and maybe he is: being the one who takes the lead makes it feel like he’s played an essential role in all the happiness that happens later, and that's a good sensation. His bedroom, his perfectly-cultivated blaze it playlist (chill but not sleepy, interesting enough to space out and listen to if you want without being so interesting it stops conversation. It’s an art form in itself and nobody does it quite as well as Usnavi, if it’s not too cocky to say that about himself), his perfectly-rolled joints.

Usually he’d smoke blunts, but it’s been a while for all of them and he’s gonna assume Ruben’s tolerance is probably somewhere at the same level as Vanessa’s always is, i.e. non-existent. So he cuts with tobacco for today, but that’s okay, joints have a pleasure of their own, especially when they’re as beautiful as this: thin and tidy with those watermelon flavor papers which Benny always scoffs at but Usnavi and Vanessa both love, a little for the taste but mostly for the fact they’re a vibrant red-pink with watermelon seeds patterned all over. There’s times he gets jealous of Benny’s muscles and general coolness but if that’s the trade-off for being too cool for watermelon papers then Usnavi’s fine over here, because look at this shit, it’s _gorgeous_. He taps the roach end down against the book just a little more insistently than he needs to so everyone will pay attention to his creation.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Vanessa, dismissively. “We get it. You and your _very_ occasionally magic fingers.”

“Watch that tone,” Usnavi says, moving back up the bed to lie next to her. “You better keep me sweet if you want a good night, I’m the only one who can roll here.”

He points at both of them meaningfully with the joint. Ruben reaches over and takes it from him.

“Says who, show-off? I told you I used to smoke.” He puts it between his lips and clicks the lighter several times futilely. “Crap, do we have another lighter?”

“Smoked in college and you ain’t never heard of roller’s rights?” Usnavi says, plucking the joint out of Ruben’s mouth and returning it to his own. “Check out amateur hour over here, you let the expert kick things off, honey.”

He takes the lighter back too, flame ignites first try, and he inhales at the flame, not even trying not to be smug about knowing how much they’re into his whole look right now. He’s caught Vanessa on multiple occasions watching him closely whenever he lights up, eyes fixed on his fingers and his mouth, and Ruben’s watching him now too. Usnavi takes a long, deep drag as deliberately cool as he can make it, eyes closed and mouth soft, settles back against the pillows. Then he ruins it by somehow managing to blow smoke directly in his own eye which probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him.

“Shitmotherfuck,” he says, writhing around in pain but still taking a second toke because god_damn_, he’s missed all of this, the burnt green taste hitting his tongue right down to the burning in his chest, suppressing one of those irritated lung-deep coughs that if he lets himself start he won’t stop for the next five minutes.

Vanessa picks up on it right away. “Been a while,” she teases. “Too much for you to handle already?”

“You wanna be careful throwin’ all those rocks in that glass house of yours,” he retorts, and explains to Ruben, “Vanessa is a total lightweight for weed. It’s God’s way of making sure she don’t get cocky about being able to outdrink me by a mile.”

Vanessa takes the joint, inhales slow and sexy, exhales straight into Usnavi’s face so that his eyes sting again. “I ain’t no lightweight.”

***

Vanessa is _so_ a lightweight and it’s the cutest shit Usnavi’s ever seen. They’re barely even finished the first before her eyes go all dozy and heavy-lidded and she always rubs at them so her eye makeup gets all smudgy. It makes her look like a sleepy panda. Usnavi loves it.

Even the vaguest suggestion that it’s affecting her makes her defiant, because of course it does, but she’s still all relaxed and limp so its sort of like getting into an argument with a beached jellyfish, which doesn’t quite jam with his previous panda metaphor so maybe he should stop making her so many animals before it gets confusing, but his point is: _adorable_.

“You fuckin’ watch me,” she says. “I’ll roll the next one better than any you’ve thrown together in your _life_.”

“Uh-huh,” Usnavi says. “Go on, then.”

“I will!”

Usnavi usually likes to stretch the evening and the supply out as long as possible, he's about riding the wave at exactly the right point, not that_fat joints that hurt to toke and then everyone’s passed out before sun’s even set_ kinda bullshit that’s just the stoner version of a dick-measuring contest, but he figures it’ll take so long for Vanessa to construct something smokeable that they’ll have more than made the most of their first high by the time they’re ready to kick off a second.

Upward of fifteen minutes later and Usnavi can’t entirely remember what he’s feeling triumphant over but he’s pretty sure he’s just been proven right about—something? What— oh, yeah, that was it, Vanessa still doesn’t even have all the shit she needs together, so if they’re judging just on speed Usnavi’s already won. Although in fairness that’s partly because she hasn’t noticed Ruben stealing everything in turn, slipping one thing up his sleeve then while Vanessa’s distracted searching for it, returning it to the bed beside her and taking something else in it’s place. Usnavi wonders if he was this much of a shit in college or if it’s something he’s been saving up his whole life just for Vanessa.

“Hey, what’s college stoners like, Ruben?” he asks, curious. “I bet they’re all that deep philosophy _what is consciousness, this is not a pipe_ kinda crap, right?”

“It’s not a pipe,” Vanessa says, pulling a rolling paper out and resting it against the packet so it sits in a wide V shape. Ruben, with a sleight of hand that nearly rivals some of Usnavi’s banned customers, slides Usnavi’s cheapass neon green grinder up his sleeve. “S’a joint. Or it would be if I could _find_ anything. Where’s the grinder? I swear I just had it.”

She starts searching for it, by which Usnavi means she slowly leans over until she’s lying in his lap then decides she needs to take a break. He walks his fingers up and down the bridge of her nose. She sticks her tongue out to try and lick his hand. Ha. Can’t reach.

“Maybe it was like that more for the arts types, but I hung out with chemistry students,” Ruben says, setting the grinder back down while Vanessa’s not paying attention and squirrelling away the packet of rolling papers instead. “I’ll admit I’m the first to be a pretentious son of a bitch but they talked a _lot_ about being wasted, which is boring after the first few times no matter how much you science it up. Like, yes, everyone _knows_ what MDMA does to your brain chemistry, we’re all adults here.”

“…Sure,” Usnavi says, not willing to admit that he’s not even sure what MDMA looks like, never mind how it works on a biological level.

“So mostly I liked smoking alone. It was like taking a vacation. I didn’t often get a chance to just totally relax, you know?”

Man. Ruben’s voice sounds so fucking good right now, gravelly from the smoke and slow in a way even Usnavi at his most stoned wouldn’t be able to mimic. Thick and sweet like maple syrup. Or marshmallow fluff. Or Nutella. Shit, Usnavi’s hungry.

“You suit relaxed. Oh, there it is,” says Vanessa, sitting up and spotting the grinder. She carefully drops a few buds in the top then holds it over her shoulder. “Usnavi, you do this, I can’t be bothered.”

“Pfft. Some roller,” he scoffs, taking it anyway and twisting with his palm, idly noticing Ruben wince at the sound of plastic squeaking against itself but there’s not much Usnavi can do about that.

“I’m outsourcing the manual labor,” Vanessa says. “Gonna do the skilled part myself.”

“Not without papers you ain’t,” Usnavi says.

“I've already got pa—wait, where the fuck did they go? Ay, esto es tonto, come on—“

Fuck, all he can think about right now is Nutella. Just eating it right off the spoon — actually, wait, no. Dry mouth, too sticky. He wants water, and then crunchy something. He tries to make himself sit up and do something about that but willpower is losing big time against his heavy limbs, at least until Vanessa starts trying to roll him over.

“Move,” she says. “You’re probably sittin’ on them.”

“Yo, don’t blame me just ‘cause you’re disorganized,” he says. She wiggles her hands underneath his ass and he makes a squeakily shocked noise. Ruben’s laughing at them both, which immediately puts him in the firing line once searching underneath Usnavi comes up empty.

“You,” Vanessa accuses, pointing.

“Me?” Ruben asks, innocently, except Ruben’s innocent face always makes him look like the guiltiest person in the history of guilty people, and he must know it because he flicks the papers out of his sleeve and gives Vanessa a wide-eyed shrug like _how did this happen, what a mystery._

“_You_,” says Vanessa again, but apparently can’t think of how to expand on that ‘cause she just kisses him very pointedly, pulling him in by the front of his sweater. Halfway through he says “I’m really thirsty” while still kissing her and then they both just laugh hysterically against each others faces for a really long time.

“See,” Usnavi says, squirming out from underneath them and taking over Vanessa’s abandoned attempt to roll. It was inevitable, really. He leans over the side of the bed to grab for the bagful of snacks he brought up from the store earlier while he’s sitting up. “Buncha lightweights.”

***

It feels like discovering a secret to have noticed it, but since they’ve been dating him Usnavi’s figured out that Ruben is nearly as fidgety as he is. It’s just instead of being all limbs all over the place, Ruben does it in all these subtle, compressed ways. It makes Usnavi feel way less self-conscious about his own twitchiness. Still, he sometimes thinks it must drive Ruben crazy trying to keep it so hidden. Usnavi gave up on trying to stay still years ago, but he can recognise those little things, like the tiny movements in Ruben’s jaw that means he’s probably drawing shapes on the roof of his mouth with his tongue, or the dreamy repetitive movements of his fingers when they find a nice texture to run over.

Vanessa was right, Ruben suits relaxed. Two joints in he’s letting that urge loose some more, slouched down with his sweater halfway pulled up, playing a little drumbeat on his tummy. His face is all squished up from the awkward position in a way that shouldn’t be appealing but really is because he looks so deeply contented right now, blinking slow and with his mouth open in an expression that’s halfway between a smile and a concussion, so Usnavi can see his tongue and has to focus all his energy on not reaching into Ruben’s mouth to poke it. Vanessa beatboxes along to the beat Ruben’s tapping out. Usnavi can hear how dry her mouth is on the plosives. He passes her the bottle of water then kisses Ruben on his exposed belly.

“Our boy’s got rhythm,” he says, joyfully.

“I did until you threw it off,” Ruben says, fluffing Usnavi’s hair with both hands, and then he wriggles one up inside his sleeve until it reemerges with a bright little plastic something that he starts playing with.

“Wait,” Usnavi says. “Pause, what even is that?"

“Lil pretty snake,” Vanessa singsongs, making a sinuous serpentine movement with her hand that mimics the up-down curves of the toy. "With all the lil colors.

“It’s too small to be a snake,” Usnavi disagrees. “It’d have to be a, a, a what do they call the baby snakes?”

“Snakelets? Snakitos.”

“Nah, nah. It’s the, um, the wiggly one. Worms.”

“It’s a tangle toy,” Ruben says. “It’s for tangling. Um. It’s, uh, it’s like a sensory thing, it’s…never mind, it’s just a thing. Good distraction for if you need something to help you chill out or whatever.”

His hands go still. Usnavi knows when to let something drop, so he just nods and reaches over to stroke the smooth plastic. “You’ll be a beautiful big snake one day, little worm beb_é_,” he tells it.

“That is not how snakes work,” Ruben says, then folds Usnavi’s hands around the toy, moving his fingers for him. The little plastic joints shift and twist with a satisfying ease. “See?”

_“Ooh_,” Usnavi coos, fascinated. “Me encanta_._ You guys can leave, I’m set for the night. And maybe for my entire life.”

“You can keep it if you want,” Ruben says.

“I can _keep it_?” Usnavi repeats, astonished. He cradles it carefully in his palms. “Ruben! Honestly, seriously, you’re givin’ me this? But it’s yours? For distractions?”

“Yours now,” Ruben says. “I got three for twelve dollars, you don’t need to look at me like I just gave you a unicorn. And I’ve got other stuff with me if I need it, anyway,” at which point he shakes down his other sleeve awkwardly till something falls out of the cuff. It’s a hacky-sack. He tosses it from hand-to-hand in an absent-minded way.

“What the fuck, you’re like a walking toy store,” Vanessa says. “How much shit do you have up there?”

“Oh my god I can keep it,” Usnavi says to himself. What an awesome present. A gift that keeps on giving, in loops and loops and loops infinitely around his fingers. Someone invented this amazing thing and then Ruben tells him there’s ones that are _fuzzy_ or have other different feelings all over them so maybe Usnavi’s easily impressed but his brain is blown all the way to fucking Jupiter right now. Like, people can just buy these for a couple of dollars and own them and give them to Usnavi like it’s not the coolest shit ever? Loop and loop and loop. He can feel Ruben watching his hands intently.

“What?”

“Nothing,“ Ruben says. “You look like you’re having fun.”

Loop. Loop. Loop. It makes his hands feel better. Calmer despite the movement, like they’ve found a task they can settle into confidently instead of dancing around restlessly searching and constantly fumbling.

“I can see why this would chill someone out,” he says.

“Yeah,” Ruben says, in an odd voice that Usnavi’s way too high to decipher. He’s smiling in a private way. “I’m sure you can.”

***

Three people in a relationship is very much like a permanent game of human Tetris, but they always find a way to fit. Vanessa with her head in Ruben’s lap, Usnavi lying with his against Vanessa’s shoulder, armed with a bag of chips and their third joint and hell, it's hitting him harder than he’d expected, though he sure as shit ain't gonna complain about it. He’s not sure he knows what zen is, exactly, but he’s pretty sure this feeling is what people mean when they talk about zen, everything all haloed round the edges looking like it’s suspended in the daylight of that bright, warm hour before sunset and he’s feeling like his blood is carbonated, sweet uplifting little bubbles of inexplicable delight. He holds the joint out for whoever wants to take it, rolls onto his front and shifts down so he can nuzzle his face blissfully against Vanessa’s chest. Much better than a shoulder.

“Eyes up here, creeper,” she says.

“Your eyes ain’t as comfortable to lay on,” he answers, muffled.

“You don’t know that, you’ve never tried.”

Which is true, so obviously he has to immediately attempt it, which just means gently headbutting Vanessa in the face until she’s shouting with laughter for Ruben to save her. Ruben tugs the back of Usnavi’s hair so he has to sit up properly.

“Behave yourself,” he says.

“Nope,” Usnavi says, grinning at him. Ruben tuts.

“My hero,” Vanessa says, giggling to herself. She smiles up at Ruben while Usnavi rearranges position again.

Did he say Vanessa high was the cutest shit he’s ever seen? Because she is, but also so is Ruben, which means Vanessa and Ruben high _together_ are so far beyond the cutest shit he’s ever seen that it’s pointless even trying to describe it. Ruben’s smoking with one hand, messing with Vanessa’s hair with the other, taking strands of it and crossing them over her face at random, or holding it over her mouth so she has a little temporary mustache.

“You must have the prettiest hair in the entire universe,” he tells her earnestly.

“Aw, thanks babe,” Vanessa says. She reaches up and strokes his chin. “And you have the prettiest beard.”

“Uh, excuse you,” Usnavi objects.

“I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em.” She stretches out to flutter her fingers across Usnavi’s jaw. “Scratchy. Ruben is soft. Ruben wins at beard!”

“Ayyy,” Ruben cheers, lazily.

“But—“

“Sssh,” Ruben says, consolingly, and moves Usnavi’s hand to his chin so he can pet Ruben’s beard too. “No fighting, just soft.”

“Do you use conditioner on this?” Usnavi asks, then “wait, if Ruben has softest beard and best belly and Vanessa has —“ he pokes her boob. “Bloop, and the shiniest hair. Am…am I just the pointy scratchy one? Am I the Worst Pillow?”

That’s such a disappointing thing to learn. He droops sadly over Vanessa, which functionally isn’t that much different than the position he was already in so probably they can’t tell, but _he_ knows he’s drooping sadly.

“Maybe a little bit pointy and scratchy,” Ruben says. “Too much elbows, not enough padding. But that’s ok, you’re the softest on the inside.”

“Aww,” Usnavi says.

“Eww,” Vanessa says. “And _everyone’s_ soft on the inside. Bodies are squishy and disgusting.”

“I meant in his heart.”

“Gross.”

“I meant his _spirit_.”

“Oh. That is true,” she says. “Soft in the middle, crunchy on the outside. He’s like an acorn.”

“Did you just call me _crunchy_?”

“Vanessa, I don’t think you know what an acorn or Usnavi is.”

“I do too,” she says. “An acorn is tiny but on the inside there’s a giant beautiful tree just like Usnavi.”

“Oh, querida, that’s lovely,” Usnavi says, touched. He clasps both hands over his heart to make sure all the feelings there stay inside. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.”

“Technically, inside an acorn is mmph mrhkgl,” Ruben says, while Usnavi reaches over to silence him by shoving a Dorito in his mouth.

“It’s lovely,” Usnavi says again, severely, and removes his hand. Vanessa doesn’t get poetic very often. Usnavi likes to encourage it when she does.

“It is lovely,” Ruben agrees meekly, through a mouthful of chips. “And so biologically accurate.”

And okay, Usnavi also likes to encourage Ruben to talk science at them, so once they’ve been in comfortably silent territory again for a while Usnavi says, “so what is actually inside an acorn?” and watches the Overexcited Professor look descend over Ruben’s face like a Snapchat filter. Vanessa makes a happy humming sound when Ruben starts talking and Usnavi wants to ask her to do it again so he can record it and like use it as his ringtone or something because it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever heard but that’d probably be weird and he doesn’t wanna interrupt so he just saves it as an audio file somewhere in his head. That makes it a definite two for two on contented partners. Usnavi is just _nailing_ it tonight.

***

Ruben has this miraculous way of making even dry or overly complicated stuff fascinating, segueing through acorns to houseplants to exactly what he’d been shading his college friends for earlier, explaining all kinds of interesting obscure facts about different psychoactive plants, from the scary-sounding ones that make people jump out of windows or forget their own name to things that sound like Usnavi’s kinda night if he were into that stuff. It’s almost poetic in itself, that particular beat to Ruben’s voice when he lists out names and effects and interactions like he’s telling bedtime stories and with Usnavi’s playlist still working away in the background like a backing track. Usnavi’s pretty sure they might have been listening enraptured for hours, hotboxing out his room with his vision softly kaleidoscoping from early evening to late, interspersed by those odd misty absences in between from when he forgets to commit what’s happening to memory.

He gets those gaps in everyday sober life too, but here it feels natural like a river flowing, not the ricochet blasting into a thousand different targets a minute that his brain usually is. Like, he still doesn’t remember how he got here but he’s confident in the fact that there was a linear journey from point A even if he can't _remember_ jack about points B-C-D-E et cetera, instead of constantly feeling as if he’s in a glitching teleporter being flung from A to T to Z to B with no warning about when it’ll happen. He gives himself mental whiplash at least sixty times a day. Seems unfair he can’t always think this smoothly, if the potential’s clearly there somewhere, but that’s okay: he can think clearer for now which means he’s figured it all out, that _right now_ is all he needs to deal with, not that loud cacophony of past-present-unfinished-unresolved-unattainable that’s usually yelling from all corners of his head.

Right now it’s just looking up at Ruben who’s stopped talking and is kissing Vanessa a little too sloppy, Usnavi lying underneath and in between them like they’re a bridge connecting over him, it’s that inviting line where Ruben’s jaw angles down from his ear. Right now it’s just Vanessa with her lipstick smudged at the side of her mouth where she usually holds the joint between her teeth and lipstick smudged all across the roach she’s holding between her fingertips and thumb, and when she sits back from Ruben there’s the same deep dusky pink printed across his lips too. She leans away and takes a slow hit while he tries to pull her in again.

“Ah-ah. Patience is a virtue, Ruben,” she says with a smirk, holding the joint towards him.

Ruben takes a drag while she’s still holding it, says, “and what makes you think I’m virtuous, Vanessa?” with smoke curling out of his mouth.

Aw, goddammit, they’re both so hot, Usnavi has to intercept, sitting up to catch the last of the smoke against his own mouth. Ruben immediately sinks into it, tongue moving against Usnavi’s in oh, a way that is _definitely_ not virtuous at all, till Vanessa turns Usnavi’s face to her and as if it weren’t all enough to make his head spin already her lips against his bring another bittersweet rush of shotgunned smoke. He breathes in, the smoke and Vanessa’s perfume and her breath, and Ruben’s kissing the back of his neck, a perfect convergence of things to be surrounded by. Usnavi’s on top of the fucking world, and that faintly possessive sense of achievement sparkles all through him: this is his bedroom, his idea, his evening, it’s going so good. Smiling and cuddly and loose beside him, his Ruben and his Vanessa. He drums his heels against the mattress happily. Damn. Life can be so kind sometimes.

“Hey,” he says to Vanessa and Ruben, feeling generous, “either of you wanna roll the next one? I’ll let you, ‘cause I’m nice.”

“Eh, no,” Vanessa says. “You’re right, yours are way better.”

“The best,” Ruben agrees.

Usnavi beams, full of pride, and sets the book up on his lap again. “Awesome.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m gonna do something spontaneous and romantic,” Ruben announces over dinner.

“_Awww_,” Usnavi says, already going all gooey and misty-eyed even though literally nothing has happened yet.

“That’s great, babe,” Vanessa says. “What is it?”

“…I don’t actually know yet,” Ruben admits. “I had this big urge to do something right now but I couldn’t think of anything. I just thought I should warn you, as soon as I come up with specifics it’s gonna happen and it’ll be _awesome_.”

Vanessa’s not sure Ruben’s got the hang of _spontaneous_ either, but she’s not gonna tell him that. It’s sweet that he’s trying.

***

A full week later and Vanessa had totally forgotten about the conversation until Ruben sits them both down with the kind of expression you’d wear for telling someone you ran over their beloved dog, and says “I still couldn’t think of anything good. It took me five days to come up with _buy them flowers,_ but flowers are just houseplants that die after a couple of days, and then I thought that giving you an actual plant might be nice but then it might also just be like, _here, I have given you a Responsibility_, which is more of a pain in the ass than anything. And then I thought chocolate, but Usnavi works in a bodega so that seems kind of pointless, there’s chocolate everywhere. And both of those ideas suck anyway. Romantic gestures are _really hard_, guys.”

“Yeah, that’s why I never do them,” Usnavi commiserates, which is just the biggest load of bullshit ever, Usnavi pretty much leaks romantic gestures out of his pores without even realizing it, but she doesn’t call him out because Ruben’s looking melodramatically morose so first priority is curbing that shit before it turns into a one-act tragedy.

“It’s okay, honey,” she says. “We really don’t mind.”

“Just you being here is romantic enough,” Usnavi agrees. “It’s fine, you don't have to think of nothin' else.”

“No, no, I did think of one thing,” Ruben says. “It’s just that it is dumb as hell. But I _really_ tried and if you laugh at me for it I’ll probably die, so if you could maybe just pretend it’s not really stupid, that would be ideal.”

He picks up his backpack and then hesitates after unzipping it. “Don’t expect miracles, that’s all I’m saying, because—“

“Dios mio, just show us already,” Vanessa says impatiently.

Ruben reaches into his bag and pulls out a little tupperware box that he opens and presents with a resigned _well here we are_ face. Vanessa and Usnavi lean in with interest.

Huh. So this might be the cutest thing that’s ever happened to her.

“Oh, _wow_,” Usnavi says.

“Is that me and Usnavi as cookies?” she asks even though it’s pretty obvious.

Ruben points in the box. “Also a heart. Because of, y’know. The feelings.”

“I’ve never been a cookie before,” Usnavi says, awed.

“You _made_ these?”

“Mm-hmm,” Ruben says shyly. “Also I have another box just full of normal shaped ones in my bag, these didn’t turn out as good as I wanted so I hoped maybe I could distract you from the aesthetics with quantity?”

“What are you talking about? These are _great_,” she says, and she means it. She already knew Ruben’s decent at art, and it translates pretty well into icing. Like, they’re not gonna win any professional competitions, but definitely Instagram-worthy. “Hold up, nobody eat anything yet, I have to share this with the world.”

In the two seconds it takes her to go get her phone from her bag and come back, Usnavi’s cookie has mysteriously acquired a little bite mark out of the corner of the hat. Usnavi is staring over into a corner with what she thinks he must think is a guileless look on his face, which apparently means making his eyes as round as possible and holding his breath.

“Usnavi!”

“Sorry querida, couldn’t help myself,” he says. “I look too good. Is this what it’s like for you guys having to look at me all day?”

She takes a picture anyway and the whole time she’s uploading and putting a nice filter and a caption on she’s imagining Ruben in his kitchen wearing his serious concentration face, icing cookies because he wanted to do something romantic for them, and she has to take a bite of her own cookie to stop herself from just like screaming or something.

It’s a good distraction, because holy shit, this is the kind of baking Vanessa could be persuaded to kill a guy for.

_”_Fuck me,” she says. “Is there anything you _can’t _do, Ruben?”

Ruben has just been sitting quietly turning every shade of red known to mankind while they fuck around with photos and taste-testing, but he smiles hopefully at them both. “Lots of things, actually. So you like them?”

Usnavi puts down his cookie and grabs both of Ruben’s shoulders firmly. “I stopped eatin' to tell you this so that’s how serious I am when I say I _love_ it. Also, did you know you’re cute as hell? Best boyfriend. All-time _best_ boyfriend.”

Vanessa says, “I didn’t wanna say it ‘cause it’d be harsh on Usnavi, but he doesn’t bake for me, so…”

“I ain't even gonna argue with that right now,” Usnavi says. “Stop the press, alert the government, take it to the bank, Dr Ruben Marcado is officially better at romance than me, signed sealed and delivered by Usnavi De la Vega on this whatever date it is today just before I died from how fuckin' perfect this cookie is.”

Ruben does a tiny little fist-pump and whispers “nailed it!” to himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Usnavi's got perfect pitch when it comes to listening but what he sings doesn’t always match up to the gauge in his head, which seems kinda par for the course for his whole life: mouth can’t keep up with his brain, voice can’t keep up with the internal tuning mechanism that lights up green when he’s got the frequency. But he knows where he’s _supposed_ to be and what he lacks in pitch he sure makes up in power, so it doesn’t hold him back.

Usnavi can never remember whether he picked his laundry up and has more than once been halfway down the stairs headed to work before noticing he forgot to put a shirt on but he remembers _everything_ about people and he has a whole library of lyrics in his head. They trip the same wires. He knows where other people are supposed to be when they sing around him but he doesn’t tell them when they fuck up, even though it’s physically painful to feel the measurements go way into the red. Even imperfect voices have music in them. There's worse kinds of inharmony than technicalities.

He thinks he probably first fell in love with Vanessa because she fit the music of the world around him so well. She never sounds discordant to him, not on the metaphor level when she speaks or in the way she feels, and when she sings for real it makes his whole self hum like the bassline to her melody. Vanessa’s got good range and a good voice. Not perfect, because even the best have off days, but if she wanted she could do something with it, so she’s confident. Which also means he can say _you’re a little sharp _and have it be constructive instead of an insult, instead of just having to let his bones vibrate with that itchy hollow feeling of _wrong wrong that sounds wrong. _She’ll adjust accordingly with a nod if she’s singing properly, or scowl at him if he does it when she’s just humming to herself because _you do **realize**_ _not everything needs to be worthy of Broadway, right?_

Usnavi disagrees. All the world’s a stage, and Usnavi’s aware they ain’t quite Shakespeare over here but he knows if their story were gonna be anywhere they’d be under those lights. They’re not exactly West Side Story either, there’s no songs for the barrio as he knows it but there’s enough for his dirty, pretty New York city as a whole that it’s sometimes kinda close if you squint. Vanessa gets it really. She knows how to catch a spotlight, with the way her hair flies behind her and the breathless excitement in her face and the way she moves her hips in time a kick bigger than champagne. She’ll take his corrections just like he accepts her comments of _your shoulders need to be looser_ or _back straight, Usnavi _when they dance, because she’s the expert there.

Ruben, with all the good will in the world, did not strike Usnavi as the music type when they first met. Too still, too stiff, too out of step. He never felt discordant, he didn’t disrupt the rhythm, because he was never musical at all. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a different thing. Usnavi likes to hear his presence anyway, but people and music are the same for Usnavi so he still has to look close for it even if he's happy to accept that Ruben's prose to their poetry.

Ruben’s taste in music is as eclectic as Usnavi’s in terms of genre but nowhere near as expansive and it stalls out completely at a certain point a few years ago just like his taste in movies and TV, like someone cut the cable that connected him to all this stuff.

Well. Someone kind of _did, _really. Movies are the least of their problems but it’s rough that even things that should be escapism are reminders. Movie nights are near impossible without prescreening, and even after that often when they’re watching something Ruben will suddenly reach for the remote and turn it off, or sharply stand and leave the room. There’s a lot they see through new eyes: Vanessa stopped watching those CSI shows she used to love after Ruben showed up because she says they make her feel sick these days, but there’s mines hidden even in things they think are innocuous.

Even without that, Usnavi struggles more and more to sit still and pay attention through anything longer than a 20-minute sitcom episode. He thought he’d grow out of his focus problems but it seems like it only gets worse, because now he has to use it all up on important rent-is-due-remember-to-eat things, not fun movietime things. Still, he finds he can follow stuff if it’s already familiar, and even if a song is new to him he can _always_ follow something with a beat. So mostly they do music nights instead, a soundtrack the safest thing to work with, and Usnavi gets to bring the stage to them like he’s introducing a close friend, though he’s never actually seen a live performance himself. Sometimes they’ll listen off the laptop for newer stuff but more often than not, they go to old, old classics: Usnavi’s parents vinyls on the record player, or just Usnavi and Vanessa singing, because they know them all by heart by now.

“Oh! I remember this one,” Ruben says sometimes and that’s something that all three of them have, a shared childhood even though Ruben didn’t grow up with them and even though Ruben never sings along.

It sometimes feels like Usnavi’s sharing a piece of his soul, built up in a collaged multimedia soundtrack of vinyl crackling and radio static, cassette mixtapes and rewinding, rewinding, rewinding VHS classics taped commercials and all off their tiny old tv to mimic their movements and learn their lyrics. Not everything can be a real performance if you’re too broke for Broadway but that doesn’t mean he didn’t learn like he’s living it, glide and step and then step and glide_, _though it’s still always the salsa his mama taught him that his feet default back to.

And slowly it all bleeds over to Ruben.

The first time they heard him it was just one word, and a drunk one at that, but Usnavi’s ears are never wrong, Ruben _can_ sing. Which, if he didn’t already know so much about him, Usnavi would wonder why it took so long to find that out. Definitely wonders why Ruben insists that he can’t, and thinks that might just be a cover for why he generally _doesn’t_. It seems like a sad way to live. Usnavi’s never not humming or beatboxing or freestyling or singing, and Vanessa loops in on a lei-lo-lai improv or switches up a song she knows to fit whatever Usnavi’s making up.

Slowly, this is what they learn: Ruben can sing but can't keep time for shit while he does it because whenever he tries too hard on that he falls all out of tune. Ruben will sing the things they listen to together in the shower or while he’s cooking and doesn’t mind them being in the room for that, but whatever it is he’s singing when he waters the plants in his apartment is barely audible, and he always stops whenever Usnavi’s in earshot.

Usnavi has a theory on this, after straining for the millionth time trying to pick it up from the other room.

“I’m pretty sure he makes up songs for his plants,” he tells Vanessa. “Like actually makes them up.”  
  
“Bullshit,” says Vanessa.

“I know what I hear,” Usnavi argues, but Vanessa won’t come round to his side without hard evidence.

It’s a little ritual for Ruben, anyway, which means eventually he adapts to part of that ritual being Usnavi or Vanessa wandering around his apartment, which means there's finally a morning when Usnavi comes out of Ruben’s bedroom showered and freshly dressed and realises Ruben hasn’t noticed him: he’s in the kitchen, it’s about the time of day he usually does his green-finger thing, and he’s still singing.

Usnavi tiptoes to the open kitchen door to listen, heart going at the speed of sound, and he has to shove a corner of his shirt in his mouth to stop from laughing when he finally figures out what Ruben’s gardening jams are. Oh, man, Vanessa has to hear this. It feels a little like eavesdropping to pull his phone out and start recording but if he interrupts he knows Ruben will stop and this is maybe the best thing ever.

Usnavi was only half wrong. There’s parts of songs he knows they’ve listened to together, variations around a theme: _blossom of snow may you — _into _two blooms for a penny, who will buy my_—into _everything's coming up roses for—_, muddled lines that fade to indistinct and semi-tuneless humming and then picks back up at random. Except now instead of the lyrics Ruben’s mumbling melodic recitations of plant names, in English in Spanish in what sounds like Latin, and then he sings about raindrops on roses and then Usnavi’s pretty sure he’s singing about the optimum PH of soil.

"Oh my _God_," Usnavi mouths to himself giddily. He’s such a _nerd_.

Ruben when he thinks nobody’s watching him dances like how he gestures, the same as the way he moves when he gets excited about whatever he’s saying with his hands tumbling and rolling like a sign language. Usnavi watches closely, trying to interpret. There’s still so much they don’t know about Ruben. Is this one of those things he used to do and is relearning, or has he always been too self-conscious to sing? Or is it something he never had at all before and it’s just their influence? That’s a thought, the idea that maybe they’re the ones who are putting the music in him like he’s adapting to their medium, and Usnavi gets so excited about it that he can’t help but make a gleeful sound under his breath. Ruben’s hands drop back down to his sides and his eyes snap to the door, where Usnavi is still recording and grinning wider than his own face.

“Good morning, starshine,” Usnavi says.

“I wasn’t doing anything!” Ruben lies, looking deeply embarrassed.

“Uh-huh,” says Usnavi, and then he takes Ruben’s hand to spin him, singing “_There's one rose sweeter than any that grows!_” at the plant Ruben was fiddling with as he does.

“This is mint, actually,” says Ruben, still flushed but smiling. “Your botanical knowledge is shameful, you’d be screwed if we dropped you in the wilderness.”

“It’s a miracle I’ve survived this long,” Usnavi agrees. He plucks off a mint leaf just to hear Ruben’s outraged _hey!_, like they don’t use the kitchen herbs specifically for food purposes anyway, and chews on it while he sends the video to Vanessa with Ruben’s reluctant permission. What a beautiful start to the morning. Today is going to be a good one, he can feel it.

Hesitantly, Ruben starts back up with the mumble-singing again even though Usnavi’s still in the room. Usnavi comes in with a quiet beat and doesn’t mind at all that Ruben can’t keep time with it, because he’s ringing clear in tune and Usnavi’s internal gauge is the same happy shade of _this sounds right_ it always is with Vanessa.

Vanessa always promises Ruben they’ll teach him how to dance and even though they keep trying he never does pick up the steps, but they have fun anyway. Usnavi doesn’t think Ruben will ever take centre-stage on the floor at the club or let anyone but Vanessa and Usnavi hear his voice but he’ll sing songs they listen to together on quiet evenings, he’ll sing songs on quiet mornings to the plants he loves so much and moves his hips while he washes dishes with his sleeves rolled up. He says he can’t get his head round footwork and rhythm at the same time, can’t keep time and keep in tune all at once, but it’s okay that he’s not the best at it. There’s music in him somewhere.


	5. Chapter 5

**November, 2003.**

Ruben blinks out of a focus reverie in the kitchen long after his mom and sisters have gone to bed. Three am silence sees the scene like this: Ruben the last one awake, and six textbooks bookmarked with countless post-it notes, and four empty coffee cups.

His ma says that drinking so much caffeine at his age will stunt his growth. There’s no data to support that theory. He’d be small compared to everyone at college no matter what. College, where he has to go to class in - fuck! - five hours. There’s an empty bed upstairs and he wants nothing more than to fall into it. He was up till four last night. His ma says that staying up so late will also stunt his growth.

As he starts to stack his books something twists in him, the same sensation as before in a new color like the adrenaline confusion after a long sprint. The burst of excited energy that carried him till now is faded, but there’s still something compelling him to_ go go go do more keep going_: mental freerunning for the fun of it turning into _better_ _run for your freakin’ life, Marcado_. Ruben is fifteen years old, and the smallest and the youngest in his class, and apparently, potentially, the best. As long as he doesn’t screw it up. He absolutely cannot screw this up.

He sits back down and opens a book at random again. The flow has stuttered out now, fingers heavy around the pen, mind heavy with overcrowding, but Ruben’s always worked through that feeling before. His bed is still calling him, but he works through that too.

***

**October, 2017.**

Ruben blinks out of a focus reverie in the kitchen long after Usnavi and Vanessa have gone to bed. There’s piles of papers and a few journal subscriptions and his first year’s pre-lab notebooks and his second year’s post-lab analyses all around him, and for some reason Usnavi is stood in front of him in his pajamas, breaking the haze of silence that Ruben’s been lost in for however many hours.

“If you keep staying up this late you’ll get so tired your brain will melt out of your eyeballs and you’ll die,” Usnavi tells him.

“That sounds medically unlikely.”

“It’s a real science fact.”

“I’ve told you before, just saying that doesn’t make it true,” Ruben disagrees. Usnavi shrugs:_ I tried to warn you. _"I want to finish these.”

Usnavi comes to stand behind him, leans his chin on Ruben’s shoulder and reaches one arm around to move a finger over the red pen annotations Ruben’s making in the margins. “For tomorrow?”

“Not till Friday.”

“That’s four days away,” says Usnavi disapprovingly. “And it’s hella late.”

“Why aren’t _you _in bed, then?” Ruben asks, and Usnavi answers “I woke up and you weren’t there so I couldn’t get back to sleep” with the easy candor that he says that kind of thing, like he doesn’t even know how sweet it makes him sound.

“I’ll be five minutes,” Ruben says. “I’ll just finish this one.”

And he really does mean it, but as Usnavi leaves the room Ruben’s already drifted attention back to the pre-lab he’s marking. He really wants to have at least this notebook completely done before he sleeps. Amara’s work always takes a little extra effort to read through - it’s almost illegible in places - but the familiar way her words hover above or below but never on the line, the way that sometimes the uneven letters flip themselves backwards always makes Ruben smile in fond recognition, thinking of the uneven notes Usnavi leaves to himself on the fridge.

It might make Ruben smile, but it makes Dr Marcado cringe. Precision is key - hell, a badly-written symbol could be the difference between calcium, cobalt or cadmium. Too much margin for error. Not that he thinks Amara is actually going to mix these up in a practical, but he’s not supposed to take that chance.

At the same time, though, it seems so unfair to lose marks on that basis. Amara can’t help it that her writing does that. And why hasn’t this been brought to the school’s attention yet, in fact? Why isn’t there any kind of support in place to make sure she can complete her work to the best of what Ruben knows to be her extremely competent abilities?

He jots down in his notebook a memo to remind himself to look into the possibilities of digital pre- and post-lab submissions. It’s the smallest of accommodations and he’s not having a student fail just because of something as small as _handwriting_. Not much point living in an age of technological innovation if not to even the playing field.

Abigail who he shares an office with always laughs when he gets intense over things like this. “Give it a couple years,” she says. “You’ll learn to pick out which ones are going places and focus your energy on them, else you’ll only wear yourself out.”

She doesn’t say it unkindly, more as though it’s inarguable. Ruben hasn't considered whether he’ll actually be a teacher long enough to become cynical about it and maybe he’s naive but he’s pretty sure even if he was in this job for a decade he wouldn’t develop that skill. His students aren’t just academic potential to be met or wasted. How many of the ones with what some would probably call the most potential have already come to him in tears on the verge of dropping out only a few months into the academic year, all under the impression that struggling means failure, no gray areas or alternative options?

And how many people with such quick, quick brains who couldn’t write properly or couldn’t focus and didn’t have any guidance with it just learned to shrug and say “I ain’t ever been smart, it’s fine” with a self-deprecating smile when that’s definitely not true? Usnavi doesn’t talk about his time at school, at least not the academic side of it, but Ruben doesn’t know where else he’d have got the idea he isn’t clever. He just does things differently.

Ruben won’t play favorites. It always fucks both sides up, and there’s no way to predict who’ll go far, so everyone’s going to get a fair shot at the best future that Ruben can offer them. Besides, he likes knowing that secretly - or not so secretly, sometimes - _he’s_ a lot of people’s favorite, for putting in extra effort no matter how brilliant the student.

It isn’t even really an effort. It’s only small things. Making sure his comments are encouraging rather than critical, looking into alternatives for Amara’s written submissions, which reminds him that he needs to draft an email to Carlos who’s been ill and has missed three classes in a row, which reminds him he's been meaning to find a better way to get content to his students on days that they can’t be there. God knows he understands that sometimes leaving the house just isn't an option. In fact, maybe he should think of some kind of solution for the days he has to call in sick himself. There must be some way around the problem that isn’t as disruptive to the curriculum.

One quick final task turns into two turns into working as usual turns into Vanessa, stood framed by shadow in the doorway looking majorly unimpressed.

“Ruben,” she says, sternly.

“I know, I know. I said I’d just be five minutes.”

“Yeah, nearly an hour ago. Usnavi’s all fidgety about you overdoing it and won’t go back to sleep, which means now I’m awake too, and I would really like to _not_ be awake, so will you just come to fucking bed already? It’s gone three.”

Damn. he didn’t realise it had got so late. It’s too easy to get carried away.

“I can decide my own bedtime,” he says.

“Fine," Vanessa shrugs. “Don’t expect any sympathy from me when you’re dead on your feet tomorrow.”

She blows him a kiss as she leaves. He makes a motion like he’s catching it with one hand because he likes the way she fights down a smile when he does that, but stubbornly picks up his pen in his other hand at the same time. Late nights are just part of his life, he can handle it.

Except now the flow is gone, and in its place he’s thinking about how tempting lying in a bed sounds after sitting hunched over a table for hours, Usnavi at his back and Vanessa in his arms. Autopilot moves Ruben’s legs following Vanessa to the bedroom. He doesn’t try to resist the call.

***

**February, 2016.**

Ruben is dragged out of not enough sleep by his brand new phone, a replacement for the one Ian threw in the toilet, and it’s ringing and ringing.

He just barely opens one eye to check caller ID, then lets it play out to voicemail. It’s pretty obvious what Jason is gonna say: _where are you? We need to hurry._

It’s a full hour before his alarm’s due to go off, but duty - well, Jason, but same thing - calls. Now Ruben’s awake he just wants to get the day over with, except currently he’s not even doing well at the part where the day starts. How the hell does Jason _function_ when his body’s constantly running around making the world a worse place all night ? Ruben’s trying to will himself to sitting and his body is refusing to respond.

He’s pretty sure he used to enjoy going to work, even when he was feeling wiped out. There’s so much to do today, for his legit job as well as for his secret side project. He’s pretty sure he was excited about all this stuff once. Sure, the pressure was intense the first year or so, when they were skipping from temporary fix to fix for Jason and before Ruben learnt how to do two workloads at once. And the stress had come back like a persistent rash the several occasions Ian started to build up resistance and they had to make adjustments to the dose or the formula, that was rough too. But Ruben can sustain himself a long time just on hope and on knowing that he’s doing something worthwhile. Blackout, despite the name, was a bright glowing beacon at the end of a tunnel he spent years travelling through. His first success, only waiting for him to put the finishing touches on.

But now Jason wants a kill drug instead, so all that momentum’s come to a dead stop with no payoff, like braking so hard you get flung through the windshield. Ruben’s still on a fast forward trajectory but not towards a destination. He’s just waiting to see how much the landing will hurt. There’s probably no way this ends well, right?

Now it’s Jason all day every day, and turns out maybe he’s better just as a brief, attractive interruption rather than a constant presence. And now it’s sometimes Ian too, and Ian might not know who Ruben is but he sure as hell knows Ruben’s face, so _that’s_ an uncomfortable prospect. It’s about the only thing that makes Ruben finally pull himself out of bed, hoping like hell he doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel on the way to work, and he can barely remember why he ever looked forward to this.

***

**October, 2017.**

Ruben is dragged out of not enough sleep by Usnavi, who is extremely close to his ear, and he’s singing.

“Just call me angel of the mooorning, angel!_” _he warbles loudly, grinning when Ruben cracks one eye open to glare at him. “Buenos días, ángel_,_” he says, and then belts “just touch my cheek before you leave me, _bay_-beee!_”_

Vanessa pulls a pillow over her head to block out the noise.

“Mnrfff,” says Ruben, disgruntled, and puts a hand over Usnavi’s face in the hope that he’ll find an off switch somewhere.

Usnavi sticks his tongue out so that it presses flat and disgustingly wet against Ruben’s palm and, once Ruben snatches his hand back, says “looks like _someone_ stayed up too late. Looks like _someone _should listen to his boyfriend more often. Time to afrontar el día!”

“No,” Ruben mutters defiantly. “Not getting up. Go ‘way.”

He cuddles sleepily closer to Vanessa, who is blessedly quiet, and presses his face against her arm. She doesn’t emerge from underneath the pillow.

“If I go, this comes with me,” Usnavi says, and takes a sip from the mug Ruben’s only just noticed his hand, making a face at the lack of milk.

“Nonono,” Ruben says, holding his hand out. “I want it.”

Usnavi moves the mug slowly out of his reach. Ruben follows it till he finds himself sitting up. He looks down at himself then back at Usnavi accusingly.

“You tricked me,” he says, betrayed.

“I did,” Usnavi confirms happily, but at least he hands the mug over. Ruben spends as long as possible half-dozing into it while he drinks, but once he’s finished and Vanessa starts stirring he figures it’s time to get up, in case she’s still holding a grudge about her interrupted sleep last night.

Today is definitely a two-coffee breakfast day. Ruben has the second one sitting in the kitchen with a plate of toast by his right elbow and Amara's pre-lab still temptingly open on his left.

“Can’t you even take ten minutes for breakfast before you start all that?” Usnavi tuts as he passes the table.

Ruben hadn’t even realized he was writing. “I’m not taking shit from you of all people about overworking.”

“Fair,” Usnavi concedes, and then his face goes all soft. “I’m only teasing, anyway. I’m happy you’re so happy at work, hermoso.”

It takes Ruben’s sleepy brain a few minutes to process that. Is he happy at work? It seems like such a lifetime passed between getting the position and the months he spent getting used to living in New York before he actually started that by the time it rolled around, teaching a summer school class only a couple of weeks after he started dating Vanessa and Usnavi, he was already so overflowing with new feelings that he hadn’t even had space to think about whether he enjoyed the job.

Today is a pretty average day. Seminar with his third years. By this point they’re confident speaking up without Ruben having to facilitate discussion as heavily, so their classes are always lively. Lab with one set of first years and that’s always fun too, because it’s all so new to most of them and he gets to be the one to introduce this whole amazing world of knowledge outside their high school textbooks. He’s running on less than four hours sleep but he’s not fighting with that exhausted part of himself that desperately tries to find an excuse not to have to deal with the day ahead, because it’s totally silent.

All the evidence is there: he’s _actually_ looking forward to it, and between that and the caffeine he can barely remember why he even felt tired in the first place.

***

**April, 2011.**

Ruben struggles through the morning propelled by necessity but sitting back down at his desk after lunch he finds his eyes drifting closed against his will. He’s back to a double workload again: apparently the first formulation of the drug that’s been keeping Jason’s split personality knocked out at night for the last few weeks is already starting to lose effectiveness, and there are too many side-effects anyway, so Ruben’s got a lot on his plate right now. He’s not sure how long he’s been half-napping when he’s startled awake by a message.

**Jason:****  
**\- Have you got anywhere with the new formulation yet?

**Ruben:****  
**\- since you asked me about it again less than an hour ago? no, jason, i haven't got anywhere, i was eating lunch.

**Jason:**  
\- Oh. Ok.  
\- It’s just I don’t know how much longer this dose is going to work on him.

It’s not as simple as just increasing the amount. This was only ever meant to be a temporary fix to buy some time while Ruben works on something more permanent. He knows Jason knows that.

**Ruben:****  
**\- i’m doing everything i can.

**Jason:****  
**\- Okay. Just hurry. Trust me, we don’t want him getting out.

***

**October, 2017.**

Ruben powers through the morning buoyed by enthusiasm. His third years were on great form today: one of them verbally cited a paper Ruben wrote himself several years ago, and they all cheered at the namedrop then laughed at Ruben when he turned bright red with embarrassed pride. But sitting down at his desk after lunch he finds his energy flagging. He’s trying to bite down a yawn when his phone goes off.

**Vanessa:****  
**\- YOU BETTER NOT BE SLEEPING DR MARCADO NO SLACKING ON THE JOB

**Ruben:****  
\- **FUCK YOU IM AWAKE

**Vanessa:****  
**\- i dont believe you

Ruben sends a picture of himself, eyes wide, pointing at his face like _see, I'm so awake._

Vanessa sendsa him a long line of emojis: scientist, eyeballs, eyeballs, red X, panda. He sends back a middle finger emoji.

**Vanessa:**

\- if you grew your hair out like mine you could hide behind it to take a nap and nobody would know, js

\- not that ive ever done that ofc

\- don’t work too hard this afternoon, ok? <3

***

**October, 2010.**

“That doesn’t look comfortable.”

“Hm?” Ruben asks, sitting up from where he’s accidentally found himself resting with his head pillowed on top of his folded arms. Again.

“The amount of times I catch you doing this, I’m starting to think you might actually live here,” says Connie.

“Shh,” Ruben says, finger to lips. “They’ll start charging me rent if they find out.”

“Don’t you ever go home and sleep properly, Ruben?”

“I’ll sleep when science does,” he answers.

Connie laughs, but she gives him a quick, concerned look as she leaves, tells him he needs to take a real break at some point. She’s sweet, but Ruben’s doing fine. S since he’s started working at Independence Memorial his tendency to be the first one in and the last to leave is veering away being a newbie enthusiasm that the techs tease him about and starting to become _yeah, that’s just Ruben_. They’ve already stopped inviting him to join them for post-work drinks because he always turns them down anyway.

He could go home. There’s nothing urgent that needs his supervision. His mom invited him for dinner tonight but nobody could leave the lab any earlier, and theres no point driving all the way to her place now, it’s already past ten. This keeps happening, and from the way Ma sounds when she calls him, she’s started to get worried. Next week he’ll go there, if he can, because it’s been a long time and he misses them too. The timing is never right.

Ruben’s own apartment is waiting. It’s a one-bed for just him, which is nice in some ways. On days when he doesn’t wake up to someone else’s dirty dishes strewn all over the place, on nights when he doesn’t have to block out the sounds of a drunk roommate bringing someone home after all the clubs close, in the evenings when nobody talks to him about shit he doesn’t care about when he’s in the middle of something important or tells him to stop talking about shit _they_ don’t care about, it’s nice then. Easier than trying to navigate co-habitation, been there hated that.

Living by himself isn’t something that makes him happy, as such. There’s a lot of silence. There’s a lot of empty space. It’s just he _really_ doesn’t like living with people. Even his family, who he loves beyond words, but he couldn’t live with them again. He was never in synch with their rhythms and they weren’t with his, which love alone can’t do anything to change. At least on his own he can have his space how he wants it. And it _is_ how he wants it, or the closest he can get, unless he finds someone he actually likes to share it with him.

Chances of _that_ ever happening when he never really gets to know people are — eh. Best not do the calculations. It’s his own fault, really, but what can he do? It’s no less lonely to spend time with people that aren’t on the same wavelength as him, and it’s definitely far more stressful, and Ruben’s just tired of trying at the moment. Maybe one day. Maybe there’s someone at the hospital that he’ll bump into who’ll get him without him having to change who he is. Hope springs eternal, or whatever.

In the meantime, plenty of other things to keep him busy. Like IMH. Here he can be alone and it’s still almost like having company, knowing that all his work is right there if he wakes up and needs something to do, knowing that there’s always someone around in a hospital at night if he wanted to seek them out. It’s reassuring to have the option, even though he’ll never take it.

At home there’s…

Ruben folds his arms again, and lets his head drop back down onto them. Sleeping here is fine. He’s not missing out on anything.

***

**October, 2017.**

“That doesn’t look comfortable.”

“Hm?” Ruben says, and his chin slips off where he was resting it on his hand, definitely not napping. He catches himself before he faceplants into the desk. “No, it isn’t.”

He stretches his arms high over his head. Over at her own desk Abigail winces at the series of cracking sounds his spine makes, and shakes her head as she puts her jacket on. “You should really—“ she begins, but she’s interrupted by Ruben’s phone ringing.

He holds up a finger apologetically - _sorry, gotta take this_ \- and picks up the call. “Hey, Vanessa.”

“Hey, babe,” says Vanessa. “We’re coming to your place tonight. I’m making food.”

“I was gonna stay here and get some work done.”

“Usnavi says you don’t gotta have your marking finished till Friday.”

“Well, Usnavi’s a fucking tattletale, isn't he?” he says. “Thanks for the offer, but—“

“I think you have misunderstood,” says Vanessa, in a deadly voice. “We are comin’ to your place tonight. I am makin’ food. You don’t have to be there when it happens but it’s happenin’ either way. Your response?”

Vanessa’s tough-girl thing doesn’t fool him for a second: if he said _I need to be alone tonight_ or _don’t go in my apartment when I’m not there_ even _no, I’m definitely staying at work _she’d back down instantly.

“I’ll…be home in an hour?” he says, in an exaggeratedly timid voice.

“Good answer. Don’t fall asleep on the train, I ain’t comin’ to find you if you get lost.”

“You gave in easily,” says Abigail, once Ruben’s disconnected the call. She gives him a searching look.

“Yeah, I’m a pushover,” Ruben says, and that’s all. He grins when she sighs angrily: he never responds to her attempts to find out more about who he’s dating, and Abigail is very vocal about how frustrating it is. Nobody’s quite figured out Ruben’s relationship status yet and the fact that he doesn’t bother to hide names or pronouns means that there’s a lot of gossip amongst those who haven’t heard that polyamory exists yet. _Wait, is he dating two people? Is he into guys, or girls, or both? What’s his deal?_

Ruben’s deal is a royal flush of a winning hand, so it’s not like he’s ashamed of it. Probably he’ll clarify things some day, but for the moment he's enjoying that he’s got a mystery that isn’t depressing as hell. Gossip is a given in any group of coworkers. There’s worse things from Ruben’s life they could be talking about.

“I suppose I can’t blame you,” Abigail is saying. Ruben raises a quizzical eyebrow. “Your face, whenever you’re on the phone to your…whoever. I’d be easily persuaded by someone who could make me smile like that, too.”

Yeah.

Ruben could stay here, and maybe should: there’s always more things to do than time in the day, even if there’s nothing especially urgent that needs his attention here. But at home, there’s Vanessa and Usnavi.

“Wait up, I’ll walk with you to the station,” he says, swinging his bag over his shoulder. He leaves his work on the desk behind him.

***

**December, 2003.**

Ruben comes home from college late to tiptoe to his room without waking up his mom or his sisters. Every footstep, every creak is thunderclap loud in the night.

**September, 2009.**

Ruben comes home after an all-nighter at the library and there’s clearly been a pre-club drinking session here from all the empty cups and half-full bottles, but his roommate is apparently not coming back tonight: his bedroom door is open, and the apartment is dark and silent.

**December, 2010.**

Ruben comes home from the lab, and thinks about Dr Cole who so far hasn’t blinked twice in his direction about anything other than this supposed insomnia cure he’s enlisting Ruben’s help with. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised: the guy radiates oblivious heterosexuality, it’s a waste of time to even think about. It’s just someone wants _him_, Ruben, specifically, and that’s a good feeling. Only for his knowledge, yeah, but it’s probably the best he can hope for.

**February, 2016.**

Ruben comes home from the club with cuts all over his face from a broken window, with his jaw aching from grinding his teeth, and with a borrowed energy racing through his veins that’s going to keep him awake all night even though everything else inside him is screaming his exhaustion.

**March, 2016.**

Ruben comes back to his shabby little hotel room after his shift, smelling of cleaning products and sweat, his cuts stinging sharply, and he wonders if he’ll ever call anywhere home again.

**October, 2017.**

Ruben comes home from work, even the brisk fall chill of the air walking back from the station not enough to revive him, and collapses on the sofa. The sofa says _hey_ _what the fuck._

“Oh, hey, Usnavi,” says Ruben, blinking down sleepily at Usnavi underneath him. He rearranges but doesn’t get up. “Sorry about that.”

“I’m all for cute boys throwing themselves at me, but not like this,” says Usnavi, winded. “_Ay_, it’s a curse being this hot.”

“I bet,” says Ruben, working his cold hands inside Usnavi’s shirt to fully appreciate his hotness on the more literal level. Usnavi goes _aaaagh _and tries to wriggle away, but it’s futile.

“You’re the worst,” he grumbles. “How was work, Dr Freeze?”

“Eternal,” says Ruben, yawning. “When did days get so long?”

“Breakin’ news, dude in his thirties gets tireder than he did as a kid,” yells Vanessa from the kitchen. “I told you you’d be dead on your feet.”

“Fucking excuse you,” Ruben objects, scowling at her as she comes to the living room to smirk at him. “I am not in my thirties. And I am _not_ tired.”

“Sure you ain’t,” says Vanessa. “That means you can stop bothering Usnavi and come help me with dinner, then.”

Nothing sounds less appealing than standing up again right now. Ruben squirms around to flip his position, burrowing underneath Usnavi.

“I can’t,” he says. “Usnavi’s on top of me. I’m trapped.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Usnavi says, pushing up. Ruben wraps his legs around Usnavi’s back and digs in his heels so Usnavi falls back down again. “Oof. You know, sometimes I feel like I’m just a glorified blanket to you."

“Ssh,” says Ruben. “Blankets don’t talk.”

Vanessa manages to work herself into the tiny fraction of space left on the sofa, tucking her feet underneath Ruben’s legs and her hair falling all over Ruben’s shoulder. He closes his eyes as she plays her fingers idly across his cheek and then his mouth. She tastes like adobo seasoning.

“Dinner ready?” he asks, and it comes out slurred and drowsy.

Vanessa checks the time on Usnavi’s watch. “Not for another hour. You got some time to sleep.”

“Not sleeping,” he insists. “Just…appreciating.”

“Uh-huh. Appreciatin’ what, the inside of your eyelids?” she asks, and she’s laughing at him.

Lots of things, actually, he wants to say: the taste of spices on his lips, the scratch of Usnavi’s stubble as he nuzzles his face into Ruben’s neck, the sound of Vanessa breathing quietly by his ear and the smell of whatever dinner she’s cooking slowly filling the apartment.

That’s a lot more words than he has energy to shape them right now.

“Being home,” he says instead, and anything else he might have added gets lost in Vanessa’s mouth pressed against his and Usnavi’s against his shoulder, and in the contented unfocused reverie between sleeping and being awake.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me extremely happy and encourage me to write more!  
Come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://thisstableground.tumblr.com/)!


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